The creative relationship between hardware, software and art will be discovered, examined and explored as the Fak’ugesi Arts Residency returns as part of the 2015 Fak’ugesi African Digital Innovation Festival.
The Fak’ugesi Residency will once again bring together the best local and international creative technologists for festival goers to enjoy.
This year, the Wits Art Museum Basement Gallery will be transformed into an inspired ‘Fak’ugesi Lab’ for the entire three week duration of the festival. During this time, resident artists will engage visitors and run workshops with the public in the development of a final installation that responds to the theme: “Futurist visions of Johannesburg: uncovering place and space, physical and virtual responses to ‘now’ for African socio-cultural technologies of the future.”
Tegan Bristow at the Digital Arts Division at Wits and Irini Papadimitriou, a technology arts curator with Watermans and the Victoria & Albert Museum in London have developed this year’s residency with support from the SA-UK Seasons 2014 & 2015, a partnership between the Department of Arts and Culture and the British Council. In the spirit of the evolving partnership with Wits Art Museum, Watermans and Fak’ugesi Festival, Ling Tan and Kasia Molga, two UK based creative technologists will join forces with Jepchumba and Nathan Gates, two Africa based creative technologists to collaborate on the development of this year’s theme. In addition to the residency and exhibition at the Wits Art Museum, the residents will also participate at the annual Digital Performance Weekender Festival at Watermans in the UK later this year.
The not-to-be-missed 2015 line-up includes UK based, Ling Tan – a designer, maker, coder and trained architect will be exploring the modes of interaction between the people and the spaces of Braamfontein using wearable and mobile technology.
Also joining the Arts Residency from the UK is Kasia Molga, a media artist and environmentalist. Molga will be working with the intersection of art, science and technology in a bid to challenge our relationships with the city with its green and man-made spaces.
Jepchumba, who originates from Kenya, will be feature as the resident “African Digital Artist”. With a background in digital art, online development and social media strategy, Jepchumba will examine how young people envision themselves in the creative futures of the city, join her at the museum to “Meet Your Future Selfie”.
South Africa based Nathan Gates joins the Artist Residency line-up as the second African artist. Gates’ interests include the domestication of knowledge at the hands of digital technologies. During the residency he will explore processes of creation in thinking about the future of Johannesburg.
Fak’ugesi Festival Director, Prof Christo Doherty, describes the residency as an exciting evolution of the first event pioneered at last year’s Festival. “In 2015, we are seeing the development and extension of the residency concept that builds on the lessons learnt and the relationships established at last year’s Festival. We look forward to a vibrant public engagement and challenging creative collaboration around the theme of futurist visions of Johannesburg.”
The Fak’ugesi African Digital Innovation Festival will run from 21 August to 13 September in Braamfontein.